


Changing Places

by Ankaret



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 01:57:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ankaret/pseuds/Ankaret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whatever false memories she's been imprinted with, Priya still wants to do the right thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Changing Places

**Author's Note:**

  * For [impactvelocity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/impactvelocity/gifts).



"A very positive annual evaluation, Dr. Brink." Adelle DeWitt's voice was glass-cold and glass-perfect as always. She reached down and adjusted the position of one of the pale jade-green Japanese teacups as precisely as if it were a chess piece. "Your standard of work is, as always, excellent. The Rossum Corporation is most grateful. We are all aware that with your research record, you could be doing much more prestigious work elsewhere."

Dr. Priya Brink fought the urge to fidget nervously with her hair. She always felt uncomfortable up here in DeWitt's airy office. She didn't like the slippery chairs, she didn't like the lighting, and she didn't like the way Adelle's smile made her heart beat faster. She _knew_ the woman could turn that smile on and off like flipping a neural switch. It didn't make Priya any less aware of her own sweaty palms and stuttering heart.

"Nowhere else I want to be," she said gruffly.

"Indeed." DeWitt let the smile linger. "I think that's all, then, Dr. Brink. Unless there's anything you'd like to bring to my attention?"

"I... er..." Priya fumbled with her empty teacup, nearly flipping it into her own lap. "Yes. That is... I want to talk to you about Xray. I think he's been under too much stress lately. Perhaps he should have a run of lighter assignments for a while."

DeWitt euthanised the smile. "I wasn't aware that you were Xray's handler, Dr. Brink."

Priya set the teacup down again. It tinkled against the lacquered table-top as her fingers juddered. "I may not be a handler, but I'm a genius," she insisted, more loudly than she intended. "I am the world authority on Actives and their neural health, and you should treat my opinions with respect. No one else understands the setup we've got here the way I do. No one else could have _created_ that system."

"You don't have to convince me," DeWitt murmured.

With a calming rush of endorphins, Dr. Brink realised that Adelle was right. There was no need for her to shout. She didn't need to convince Adelle, and it was ridiculous to suppose that she needed to convince herself.

She _knew_ every intricate facet of the imprinting process. She knew it the way that only its creator could. She remembered the months of beta-testing when she wasn't sure any of it would work at all. She remembered, with a small dutiful pang, the very unfortunate but unavoidable death of one of the Actives during that testing.

Priya thought of herself as a moral person, and she'd made a point of remembering that Active's face. He'd died so that her system could live. It seemed like the least she could do. It had been a handsome face; strong bones, dark hair, slightly puzzled dark eyes. A face that suited the confidence trickster she'd been told he was. Priya was sure he had no trouble separating women from their savings and leaving them smiling all the while.

Not that she'd ever have been one of his victims. Ever since before she entered the prestigious neuroscience program at the University of Sydney at the age of fourteen, Priya had known that she was exclusively attracted to women. That was why her hands were shaking now.

"Well, I think that's all." DeWitt stood up, hands folded in front of her, finishing-school perfect. "There wasn't anything else you wanted to say, was there, Dr. Brink?"

Priya focused her thoughts, with an effort. It almost felt as if something was trying to _stop_ her thinking about... whichever of the Actives it was. Something that kept nudging her in the direction of thinking about Adelle instead, and how those creamy small breasts hidden under the prim silk blouse would fit into the palms of her hands, and... did it matter which Active she'd had the concerns about, anyway?

_Xray_. The name was like an itch that she couldn't scratch, right at the back of her head. Xray couldn't articulate his own distresses, and she was the only one who could do it for him. It was a nuisance, because she didn't like getting involved in the Actives' messy and inevitably shallow little emotional troubles. But nevertheless, it was nagging at her, and it wouldn't go away.

"Xray," she said, almost doubtfully.

"Xray?" DeWitt's eyebrows lifted like polite half-moons. "What possible concerns could you have about Xray, Dr. Brink? He's one of our more popular Actives. Everyone thinks he's..." She searched for the right word, and found it some distance outside her everyday vocabulary. "Cute."

"I think he's been on too many emotionally and physically draining assignments recently. He's been exhibiting some odd behaviour." Priya hesitated. "You know my plastic dinosaurs? The ones I keep on my workstation, with the resin Sailor Scouts and the one-seventy two scale _Moya_ model? He keeps taking those and putting them in his bunk. I think it's a comfort-seeking behaviour."

"I shall most certainly take note of your expert opinion." DeWitt gave another little smile, this one most definitely of dismissal. "Thank you once again, Dr. Brink, for a most _informative_ meeting. I'm sure you have somewhere to be."

Priya nearly fell over her own feet in her haste to leave the office. She shared the lift down with Tango and her handler. Tango was dressed as an air hostess. Priya decided not to think too hard about that.

She'd had a lot of practice in not thinking about things too hard, since she'd come here. DeWitt was right, she _could_ have been doing much more prestigious research. But... well, the offer from the Rossum Corporation had come at an opportune time. There would have been an enormous scandal if anyone had discovered the plagiarism in her PhD.

And after all, Priya told herself as she smiled absent-mindedly at two passing Actives, she was a genius. Genius deserved privileges. That woman she'd plagiarised should have felt honoured to have Priya Brink build on her work, and take it where she'd been too limited to go.

Priya paused to admire a water feature at the bottom of a flight of steps. The water tinkled peacefully, the droplets almost seeming to glow in the soft ambient light. A short red-haired figure drifted up to stand beside her.

"Hello, Xray," said Priya. "Have you been taking my dinosaurs again?"

"I don't remember taking them," said Xray, staring aimlessly into the water.

"How do they get into your sleeping space, then?"

"Maybe that's where they belong."

Priya found conversing with most of the human race a chore, but talking with Actives plumbed new depths of vapidity. She'd done her best for Xray, and now she had other things to do. Shaking her head, she strode off to her office to find Ivy and take another look at the bug that had caused Foxtrot to be programmed with the skills of a piano virtuoso when he was supposed to have become a rather inexpert cellist.

Xray remained by the fountain. His eyes were unfocused, but every now and again his hand slid up to rub a bruise on his shoulder, and he looked up at Dr. Brink's window, frowning as if there were something he ought to remember.


End file.
